16. Hawthorne

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

HAWTHORNE

A s much as I wished to stay home Monday morning, I had to go to the pack house and get a bit of work done. I dropped Jasper off at the clinic before heading over.

Everything went as normal. I spent most of the day going through requests of pack management, which was what I typically spent most of my Mondays doing.

Right before I planned to leave for the day, Amir walked into my office. "Pack Alpha Hawthorne," he greeted, oddly formal. "We have a problem."

"What's going on?"

"Remember last week, I told you we got correspondence from the Mislulu pack?"

"Yes, I recall." I was going to read the note…eventually. I wasn't the best at checking them, and had forgotten until now.

"Apparently, it was one of the leaders from that pack coming to speak to you about something they found."

"What did they find?" Without an alpha to lead, the Mislulu pack had a congregation of leaders, though that wasn't ideal for them. Packs had alphas to lead as a show of strength, and without one, they could look vulnerable to other packs who wanted to encroach onto their territory.

"They claim there was an alpha in the database who had an exam conducted here, and they claim it's theirs."

My blood ran cold. "What?"

"They're saying the alpha is from their pack, so they want her to go with them."

"No," I growled.

Amir took a step back. "Where are they?" I asked.

"Conference room," he said.

I turned and left, throwing the door open as I went. When I got there, I saw an older man on one side and another who looked to be around my age next to him.

"How can I help you?" I asked.

The older man stood. "Are you Pack Alpha Hawthorne?"

"Yes," I grit out.

"I'm Roland Adams, and this is my son, Stephen. We're here because a sample was entered into the database for an alpha wolf over the weekend, one we believe to be my son's child."

I started trembling. "I'm sure you're mistaken."

"I don't think so," Rolland said. "We were able to get a DNA test to prove it. I have the results here." He slid the document across the table, but I didn't need to see it. Though she looked more like Harper than this man, I could see a similar hair color and face shape.

"And because she's not registered with a pack," Rolland continued, "we would like her to come to ours."

"That's not happening," I said clearly.

He furrowed his brows. "I don't understand. Do you have some kind of attachment to this child?"

I stood behind the chair, gripping the back. "Yes. She's my mate's daughter. She belongs with this pack."

Rolland pursed his lips. "According to the database, she's not. You haven't claimed her, so that means as of right now, she belongs to our pack, and we don't have an alpha. Training her to take over Mislulu one day would be the first good thing my son ever contributed to this pack."

Stephen, for his part, looked completely uninterested. How a man could be this uninterested in meeting his own child made me want to snap the chair I was currently gripping in my hands.

"It's an error," I said. "We've mated, and it must not have updated." It was a lie, but one I could use to buy more time. He was technically right. Because she was blood-related to them, she should belong to Mislulu, but I'd never liked that pack. They held onto archaic traditions that put them in this situation to begin with. However, mate bonds were as good as blood, and if I was mated to her mother, that would make her just as much my family as theirs. But if they found out I was lying, they could challenge my pack. Though I didn't think they had the manpower to do so, I would like to keep this as peaceful as possible.

"Dammit, Stephen," Rolland said, addressing his son. "How could you let this alpha slip through our fingers like this?"

Stephen scoffed. "I didn't even know I knocked the girl up until months later," he said. "And how was I supposed to know the runt would be an alpha? I'm not."

I couldn't help it. I flew at the guy, gripping his shirt and pinning him against the wall. "Don't speak about my mate or child like that if you'd like to leave with all your body parts," I growled.

He looked like he wanted to be smug, but genuine fear clouded his expression. "Whatever."

I reeled back and punched him, hard. I felt his nose crack under my fist, blood pooling from his face as his hands flew to it. "What the fuck, man?" he yelled.

Rolland cut in. "That's enough, Stephen. Please respect our host."

I scoffed. This man couldn't care less about his son, about as much as his son did about Aria. He only cared about securing an alpha for their pack.

"I understand, but we would like to see proof of this mating."

"Proof?" I asked.

"Yes. If the mother tells us she's your mate and would like to stay here, even after hearing our offer, we will leave."

He seemed pretty sure they would leave, but I knew Harper. I knew she wouldn't.

"Fine. Come back tomorrow, and you may speak to her if she wants to see you. "

"Fine."

"Amir will see you out," I said.

They both left, and I sat there, taking some deep breaths. I needed to calm down before I went home.

Without thinking, I got up, went to my car, and drove a bit further down the mountain until I reached my parent's house. Once my father stepped down from being the alpha, they moved closer to human territory, hoping to live out the rest of their lives in a bit more peace.

My tires crackled on the gravel as I rode down their driveway to their small cabin. A plume of smoke floated up from the chimney, telling me they were home.

Though this was smaller than the house we grew up in, it had many of the same touches. Wind chimes hung on the porch, and the rocks pressed with mine and each of my siblings' paw prints from the first time we shifted littered the garden.

I knocked on the door, and it opened quickly. My mother stood there, her gray hair tucked back into a bun and her apron covered in flour.

"This is a nice surprise. How are you?"

"I'm alright. Just wanted to visit."

She looked behind me. "Where are the boys?"

It was funny she still called them boys. "They're at home. Is Dad around?"

"He should be out back, chopping some more wood. It's getting chillier every night."

"Thanks." I gave her a hug and a kiss on the side of her head before heading out back.

My old man was there, swinging an axe against a log. His hair was mostly gray, his back permanently bent. It was a good look into my future, and thinking about the happiness he and my mom shared even now made me happy.

"Hey, son," he called when he saw me. "I didn't know you were stopping by."

"I didn't either," I told him.

He stepped away from the axe and wiped his brow with his towel. "You need something."

He didn't say it as a question. He always knew. I let out a deep sigh. "When you met Mom, did you ever feel…out of control? Like your wolf didn't want to be contained?"

He laughed. "Almost every day for a year."

My eyes widened. My father was one of the most put-together men I'd ever met, and I couldn't imagine him losing control like that.

"Really?"

"Of course. It's only natural to feel overprotective of your mate. And when you're juggling that knowing everything happening within the pack, it can make you jumpy."

I nodded. "How did you make it stop?"

"It just takes time to re-regulate. What's going on?"

I told him everything: the app, finding Harper and Aria, what happened at the clinic and the house, how I lost control, about the Mislulu pack. He listened intently, his face never changing expression.

When I was done he said, "I suggest you deal with Mislulu quickly. They took a turn for the worse a long time ago and shouldn't be trusted. Other than that, it seems you're in a world of trouble. You have three mates, one with a child already. And a human, no less. You're gonna need much more willpower than I ever had."

That was his grand advice? It wasn't very helpful, but at least I didn't feel so alone in the situation anymore.

"Three mates and a baby? " I heard someone screech from the back door. I turned to see my mother stomping my way.

She reached up and grabbed me by my ear. "You have another mate and a child?" she repeated.

"Ow!" I squealed. Even though I was a grown alpha, she managed to grab my ear perfectly to inflict maximum pain. "Stop!"

"When were you going to tell me?"

"When you let go of my ear!" She finally released me, and I held my hand to my ear. "We met kind of recently," I explained. "I was going to bring her over once things were more settled and serious."

"She's your mate," mother said. "It was serious as soon as you met."

"She's human," I explained. "It's different. We're learning as we go."

She looked mildly appeased. "And a child?"

"She has a kid from a past relationship. She's an alpha shifter as well." My fist squeezed as I pressed down my anger about that. "Aria's about four."

My mom let out a sigh. "Fine. But I want to meet them soon. If I'm welcoming a new grandbaby to the family, I need to prepare. What kinds of things does she like? I'll make a list."

She fluttered inside, and my father and I followed her. "She likes this odd cartoon about rabbits and coloring. And she can eat more chocolate chip pancakes than I thought possible."

Though it had only been a few days, I realized I knew more about her than I thought. And I wanted to learn it all. I wanted to know everything about that little girl and give her everything she's ever wanted.

"That's good," my mother said, jotting some things down. "I'll pick some things up for her to play with here."

"Thanks, guys. I should get home to them."

"Yes, here." She shoved fresh baked bread into my arms. "I know Leo keeps you well-fed, but no one beats my bread."

Though that was true, I would never say it aloud to Leo. "Thank you." I hugged them both goodbye and made my way back up the mountain to my mates.